Whitlam

The Power And The Passion

Season 1Episode 1ABCMay 26, 2013

An extraordinary story of the hard-fought rise and dramatic fall of a visionary Australian Prime Minister during one of the country's most turbulent eras. With its scandals and political deaths, dizzying highs and terrible lows, prime minister Gough Whitlam's rise and fall reads like Shakespeare. Heroic to some, flawed to others, his changes still echo today.

By 1987, the Hawke government was fighting for its life. Bob Hawke craved something no other Labor Prime Minister had ever achieved - three terms in government. A miracle, preferably more than one, was needed to prevent the government being wiped out by angry voters. But out of the wilderness came great political opportunities. The environment rose to the fore to rekindle Labor's electoral fortunes.

Academy Award winning filmmaker Errol Morris (The Fog of War) turns the camera on former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Profiles an often controversial figure and his thoughts about the US involvement in the Iraq War.

From draft dodging to the Dayton Accords, from Monica Lewinsky to a balanced budget, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton veered between sordid scandal and grand achievement. In Clinton, the latest instalment in the critically acclaimed and successful series of presidential biographies, this film explores the private peccadilloes and the public battles of one of the most fascinating, contradictory, and larger-than-life figures ever to occupy the White House. Over four hours, the film will follow Clinton's extraordinary story from his childhood in Arkansas to his impeachment trial in the Senate of the United States. Through interviews with a wide range of intimates and enemies, as well as writers and historians working on the latest scholarship, we will see the Clinton presidency in a new light. Produced by Barak Goodman.